I managed to convince a friend of mine who had a trusted relationship to these guys, to let me visit them and document the work of their brigade. I told them I am portraying the heroes of this war, a silly idea I thought but they seemed to like it very much. Some of them were skeptical and asked my fixer friend about my background and political affiliation and why I was taking so many close ups. It was a great chance to capture so many different beautiful faces in such a good light.

It was at the early morning hours of a very cold and dry winter day. At that time, I was still a believer in the Syrian cause. I thought violence to some extent, is necessary to achieve a better political system. Ignoring the fact that the ideology underlining the whole movement was too dangerous to be mixed with any amount of violence.

The rapid increase of violence could not be explained by violence itself. The needed environment for it was the underlining ideology driving the brutal war in Syria. This ideology is one of a very specific nature, namely the ideology of obedience.

Refusing to walk the whole way to destroy all taboos, the Syrian revolution destroyed the political authority but failed to destroy the religious one. The one that is controlling the heights of the power hierarchy in that cursed middle eastern country.

At the end, I managed to take tens of great portraits at an ideal light despite the fact that i, along side thousands who supported the Syrian opposition where gambling with other peoples lives.

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The gesture of the young soldiers was more than authentic, their faces merely changed because of my camera. They definitely enjoyed the idea of being portrayed but they also new that they weren’t very far away from their deaths, regardless to the reason why they are doing all of this.